seasons, and for days, and circling years; And let them be for lights, as I ordain Their office in the firmament of heaven, To give light on the Earth!’ and it was so. And God made two great lights, great for their use To Man, the greater to have rule, by day, The less by night, altern; and made the stars, And set them in the firmament of heaven To illuminate the Earth, and rule the day In their vicissitude, and rule the night, And light from darkness to divide. God saw, Surveying his great work, that it was good: For, of celestial bodies, first the sun A mighty sphere he framed, unlightsome first, Though of ethereal mould; then formed the moon Globose, and every magnitude of stars, And sowed with stars the heaven thick as a field. Of light by far the greater part he took, Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed In the sun’s orb, made porous to receive And drink the liquid light, firm to retain Her gathered beams, great palace now of light. Hither, as to their fountain, other stars Repairing, in their golden urns draw light, And hence the morning planet gilds her horns; By tincture or reflection they augment Their small peculiar, though, from human sight So far remote, with diminution seen. First in his east the glorious lamp was seen, Regent of day, and all the horizon round Invested with bright rays, jocund to run His longitude through heaven’s high road; the grey Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danced, Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon, But opposite in levelled west, was set. His mirror, with full face borrowing her light From him; for other light she needed none In that aspect, and still that distance keeps Till night; then in the east her turn she shines, Revolved on heaven’s great axle, and her reign With thousand lesser lights dividual holds, With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared Spangling the hemisphere. Then first adorned With her bright luminaries, that set and rose, Glad evening and glad morn crowned the fourth day.
“And God said, ‘Let the waters generate Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul; And let fowl fly above the Earth, with wings Displayed on the open firmament of heaven!’ And God created the great whales, and each